Flying Fish
By Vern Hobbs
Aberdeen Bay; 332 pages; $15.95

At first glance, “Flying Fish,” appears to be yet another quirky Florida novel in the vein of Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey. But while it is peopled with suitably unusual characters (including a ghost), Vern Hobbs’ debut novel is something much more

Set in the fictional “hardscrabble fishing village” of Juniper Key, where a ban on fishing has been implemented, “Smiley” Randolph, the reserved editor of the town’s weekly newspaper, is caught in the middle of the town’s struggle to survive. Guided by the ghost of a long dead community icon, Smiley tries to divest the locals of their obstinacy to hear out two unorthodox strangers who may have some solutions to their plight. Can Smiley overcome his limitations to help save Juniper Key? What’s more, can the people of Juniper Key overcome their prejudices and open themselves up to change? These uncertainties are at the core of Hobbs’ splendid, inventive tale.

Hobbs, a Cape Canaveral-based freelance writer, avid sailor, and longtime Resident contributor, could have embraced the easy Hiassen/Dorsey approach for “Flying Fish,” but opted for something eminently more satisfying. “Fish” does have its fair share of intrigue — there are some delicious mysteries to unravel and plenty of behind-the-scenes political machinations — but the key to the novel’s success lies in Hobbs’ respect for simplicity and skill at characterization. It’s almost a given that Juniper Key’s inhabitants would be eccentric, but Hobbs gives them warmth and more flesh, which imbues them with a timeless, almost Dickensian presence. More resonant archetypes than straw-stuffed caricatures, Luraleen, Ginny, Polly, Rodney… all of them, however minor, linger long after the book ends. Smiley himself is a fantastic character; we grow with him as each event unfolds and root for his victory. Moreover, you root for the lovable people of Juniper Key who develop in tandem.

Hobbs also evokes the quintessence of Florida life with gentle mastery. Along with its characters, Juniper Key comes to glorious life through creative suggestion, much like Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, a place that’s eternal as it is inchoate.

Add to these qualities a gripping, multi-armed plot, and you have that rare summer novel — one that keeps you turning its pages and provokes thought. We can’t wait to hear more from Vern Hobbs… and Smiley Randolph. — PTB

Flying Fish is available for purchase through Amazon.com. Visit Aberdeen Bay online at: www.aberdeenbay.com.

Let’s Ride: Sonny Barger’s Guide to Motorcycling

What is the world coming to? We have an unending war, the world economy on the brink of collapse, and now Sonny Barger writes a “How-To” book? Is this really the same Sonny Barger who is a founding member of the Hell’s Angels? The same Sonny who did time for… oh, never mind — this isn’t about Sonny; it’s about what it takes to become a lifelong motorcyclist, one of Sonny’s stated goals in writing this guide. To Sonny, a motorcyclist is a person who may not even own a car; a person who doesn’t just ride a bike to work when the weather is nice, but takes extended cross-country trips; someone who can have a relationship with an inanimate object — and his hope is to make you one.

Sonny knows bikes, and he gives you a good bit of the knowledge he’s gained over his 60 years of riding. He assumes the reader knows nothing, and goes over every nut and bolt and insurance policy and biker stereotype, beginning with his reasons for riding, from better gas mileage and the brotherhood (especially if you’re in a club), to the freedom of the road. He’s a “buy American” guy, but surprisingly not a Harley fan, and he thinks even less of Italian bikes. “If you must buy Italian, it’s best to stick to their guns and shoes…” he advises.

I’m not a rider, and what would have turned into a boring book for me was made palatable by Barger’s sense of humor. Unfortunately, Sonny appears to get a little bored himself about halfway through as his humor fades away. This also seems to be about the point where the proofreader quit (both grammar and spelling suffered, i.e. “there” versus “their”). These may seem like small transgressions, but not something you would expect from a reputable publisher. And does he really need to tell you to “get a metric tool set” if your bike “uses metric-sized bolts and nuts?” Even I know that. The evolution of motorcycle design provided an occasional relief from the mundane world of nuts and bolts. Of particular interest is how Harley Davidson “sold motorcycles that were worn-out antiques even when they were new.” But Barger stuck with Harleys because they were the best American bikes, until Victory came out with a better one in the mid 1980s.

This book is for the person who knows nothing about bikes, but wants to in a bad way. Barger states over and over that it takes dedication to be a rider. He talks of the brotherhood he feels through his membership in a “1%” club, and the dedication it takes to be a member, never mentioning that this club is the Hell’s Angels. That shouldn’t matter, but I would never have known of Sonny Barger if not for the Hell’s Angels. But again, the book is not about Sonny or the club he belongs to. It’s about what it takes to be a motorcyclist, and who better to write it than someone who has truly devoted his life to it.

TORTILLA FLAT

John Steinbeck is one of a handful of American authors awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the last century. He is perhaps best known for “The Grapes of Wrath,” and to a lesser extent, “Of Mice and Men.” While those novels are dramatic in nature, the lesser-known “Tortilla Flat” features a cast of lovable losers even Tom Joad could both laugh at and relate to.

The novel revolves around a group of men who spend most of their time looking for wine and two or three dollars rent to pay their friend Danny, who inherits two houses in the Tortilla Flat area of Monterey, California. Danny allows his friends to live in one — at least until they burn it down and move into the remaining house with him. Pilon, Pablo, Big Joe Portagee, and Jesus Maria are all ne’er-do-wells looking for an easy buck or gallon of wine, but their interest always lies in the well-being of others, particularly Danny.

“Tortilla Flat” is not so much a novel as a collection of stories. In one episode, Dolores “Sweets” Ramirez, a woman “whose eyes could burn behind a mist with a sleepy passion which those men to whom the flesh is important found attractive and downright inviting,” takes an interest in Danny. Danny succumbs to her wiles and “assaulted her virtue with true gallantry and vigor.” He “procures” a vacuum cleaner for her, even though she has no electricity, never mind that the vacuum cleaner has no motor. Sweets is proud of her appliance and can be seen sweeping her floor every day. She “did not neglect Danny,” who now spends every night at her house. His friends grow worried about him, and “reprocure” the vacuum cleaner to save Danny from this selfish woman.

Danny is the lone Caucasian, and a revered figure to the others. In their eyes, he has suffered much through the war and the bad luck that always befalls them. The story collection finally comes together as a book in the end when Danny falls into depression and his friends organize a party in his honor to cheer him up. Danny grows to superhuman size through the night, walks outside in the early morning, and engages in what is described as a monumental fight with an unknown being. No one witnesses the fight that he loses, but all the friends seem to recognize it as a fight for each of them. The story is set in the years immediately after World War I, and the characters are all veterans. Their daily grind is to find wine, but Steinbeck infuses his characters with a certain nobility by using Shakespearean dialogue: “where hast thou been?”; “art thou thirsty?” etc. Doth thou understand? It can be read on many levels — as an indictment of the treatment of war veterans, as a social commentary that is a ubiquitous Steinbeck theme, or as a simple tragicomedy.

“Tortilla Flat” was Steinbeck’s first critical and commercial success. It’s difficult on the surface to find any redeeming qualities in the characters, but the noblesse oblige that would come full force in Tom Joad and George are beginning to emerge. It’s a book that can be put down for a few months and picked up again without losing any of the flow — and one that should never be considered for a yard sale. — Mark James

The Humbling

Doesn’t Philip Roth realize that retirement is part of the American dream? At the ripe old age of 76, he’s recently released “The Humbling,” his 30th book and eighth this century, and he has another due for publication in a few months. His latest is the story of an aging actor who has lost his ability — thus the humbling. Could this be Roth foretelling his own artistic demise? Can he be serious?

The story opens with Simon Axler, celebrated stage actor, interpreter of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, having lost the art that brought him fame and fortune with a reputation as the “last of the best of the classical American stage actors.” “He’d lost his magic,” the narrator tells us in the opening sentence. Axler begins to contemplate suicide in the same fashion as Ernest Hemingway (coincidence?), his wife leaves him, and he ultimately checks himself into a hospital. While there, he meets Sybil Van Buren, a woman committed by her husband after she witnesses him molesting their young daughter. She tries to convince him to murder the husband, but he can’t be convinced, and Sybil fades away when Axler checks himself out after 26 days.

Simon retreats to a lonely but comfortable existence in his country house until Pegeen Mike Stapleford arrives — a woman 25 years his junior who had “lived as a lesbian since she was twenty-three,” and also happens to be the daughter of old friends. Axler even won the honor of selecting her name in a contest before her birth. What he sees now is not a lesbian, but a “lithe, full-breasted woman of forty.” A relationship — both physical and emotional — develops, and he begins to experience a rebirth of sorts. Pegeen becomes the muse he lost; he flirts with the thought of acting again, and considers fatherhood for the first time. Just when he feels life may be worth living, Pegeen abandons him and all is lost.

Roth has often been unfairly typecast as a chronicler of the Jewish experience in America. Many of his books are about Jews trying to fit into a non-Jewish society in a fashion that sometimes tends towards nihilism. In a broader context, his characters are just outsiders that could ultimately be any minority. Roth never identifies Axler as Jewish, but he is an outsider — an actor whose skill for losing himself in the roles he plays. Once he loses his art, he finds himself in the unfamiliar role of himself, an undeveloped character trying to fit in.

There is ultimately no point to this story, much as Simon Axler can find no point to his life without acting. It’s also a bit short for a novel, almost as if Roth ran out of inspiration and decided to just end it. But given his prolific output of the past decade alone, it is difficult to imagine that it is autobiographical in any way. Even with the brevity and the pointlessness, Roth’s prose is still enjoyable — the work of an author who has not lost the magic.  — Mark James

Breath
By Tim Winton

218 pages; Picador Press, 2008

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42839-6

Taking breaths on a regular basis is a good thing, so it’s a little odd that Tim Winton’s novel “Breath” begins with a teenager who isn’t breathing at all. But Bruce “Pikelet” Pike, the paramedic first on the scene, recognizes what the boy has done, and that event sparks a reminiscence of his teenage years, a foreboding beginning to what’s billed as a coming-of-age story for a couple of Australian surfers. But as Pike looks back thirty-five years later, it doesn’t seem as if any of these characters ever came of age — and only a few survive.

The 12-year-old Pike discovers a mutual attraction to thrill-seeking with Ivan “Loonie” Loon, and the two are soon fighting for waves in the cold waters off the western Australian coast. Sando, the local legend, takes them under his wing and eventually pushes them into surfing some secret breaks only he knows about. But Pike realizes his limits when Sando takes them to Nautilus, a triple-overhead wave one mile offshore that breaks in three feet of water. Pike realizes he’s in over his head in more ways than one, and Sando mocks him as he stays in the channel, safely away from the impact zone. As he watches Loonie take off on a wave he can never make, Pike realizes that he is “after all, ordinary.” Sando then begins to cut him out of his extreme sessions, eventually heading out on Indo surf trips with Loonie for months at a time.

Pike feels abandoned, a feeling he shares with Sando’s wife Eva, a former extreme skier trying to recover from a career-ending accident. The expected happens when boy meets girl, and as with surfing, he soon finds himself addicted to her despite their age difference. Like her husband, Eva takes Pike under her wing on a journey of sexual awakening. But he discovers that her sexual proclivities can be just as deadly as Sando’s wave selections, as she pushes him to places an ordinary person like him doesn’t want to be.

Later, Loonie, Sando, and Eva all leave Australia, each chasing their version of the “perfect wave.” Pike is the only one who doesn’t embark on that journey, and Winton chooses to summarize the time between the departure of his three friends and the discovery of the dead teenager who begins the novel. The story essentially ends as a result, and you wonder if the teenage years were a catalyst for the true coming-of-age experienced in the intervening years.

“Breath” was originally published in 2008, and has recently been reissued in paperback. It’s set in the early ’70s before competition ruined the surf world when the “legends” were shadowy characters, not sponsored and spoiled media hams. There were no leashes, high-tech wetsuits or high-performance boards, just foam, fiberglass, and one or two fins. Winton does an excellent job of capturing both the exhilaration of riding waves and the fear that sometimes comes with it. He’s also equally adept at capturing sexual exhilaration — and sometimes fear (read the book!) — for both Pike and Eva. Both are flirtations with death that Pike chooses to avoid. Winton invites a comparison between surfing and sex, as well as a conclusion: they can be a lot of work, but well worth the effort. – Mark James

In it, recently divorced treasure hunter Marshall Cross finds himself down on his luck. His foundering archaeology-themed amusement park, Treasure Island, is being threatened by ruthless real estate tycoon Denton Barrett, and Cross is hoping for a big find to stave off selling his dream. Finding Pizarro’s golden sword, an intricately carved, razor-sharp rapier lost in a hurricane in 1715 off the coast of Brevard County, would do just that. Cross’ problems mount when news breaks that a meteor is forecast to strike the Atlantic, threatening to send a mammoth tsunami barreling into the Florida peninsula. From undersea shipwrecks, to gator-infested swampland, to Kennedy Space Center — Cross’ adventures find him going toe-to-toe with Barrett’s paramilitary army, a seductive zookeeper, and a surly bull shark named Marge. Can Cross unearth Pizarro’s sword, save Treasure Island, uncover an astronomical conspiracy, and find love — all before the meteor crashes into the ocean and his new-found adversaries turn him into shark bait? You won’t know till you read it.

The folks at Lost Treasure Magazine call A Sword for Pizarro a combination of “the maritime adventure of Clive Cussler, the breezy escapism of Jimmy Buffet, and the witty mystery of Robert B. Parker,” while others attest to its great serial potential. Either way, Ryan’s entertaining novel, the culmination of a year and a half of what he calls “planned spontaneity,” puts Brevard County indelibly on the literary map.

We asked him a few questions at rusty rapierpoint…

What do love most about living beachside?

Ahh, beachside… Where the only thing hotter than the July mid-day sun is the venomous sting of the fire ant. Brevard County is a beautiful and wild paradise. It’s the only place on the planet where you can witness the future, with multi-million dollar NASA rockets blasting-off for the dark recesses of space, and at the same time see the world at its most primeval, in the untamed swampland where the gator rules supreme. I only spend a few months of the year in Brevard, and the rest of the year in the Northeast U.S. I often refer to myself as a dyslexic snowbird, since it’s usually the summer months I’m in Florida.

How did the idea for “A Sword for Pizarro” come about?

I initially wanted to create a sort-of anti-Indiana Jones adventure hero. A character maybe not quite as noble, not as smooth, but a bit more relatable and endearing than the fedora-wearing treasure hunter. I don’t recall when or where I came up with the plot; it had always sort of been in my mind. I began writing the story in St. Thomas, V.I. in the summer of 2005.

How does Brevard figure into the plot?

All of the action takes place North of Sebastian Inlet and South of the Cape. The hero, Marshall Cross, owns an archaeology-themed amusement park in Cocoa. He docks his boat at Port Canaveral and his girlfriend lives in Melbourne. The entire story is set among the sandy dunes and ABC liquor stores of the Space Coast.

What kinds of places are local readers likely to recognize?

A number of local landmarks figure prominently in the story, including Kennedy Space Center, the Cocoa Beach Pier, the Zoo, and even Disney World.

Are some of the characters based distinctly on locals you’ve met, or are they amalgams of different people from your travels?
You might meet our hero Marshall Cross sipping a rum and Coke at Grills Tiki Bar at Port Canaveral. Or you might find his sidekick Diego Espinoza eating a Bistec de Palomilla at Mr. Cubano’s Cuban sandwich shop. Fact? Fiction? I’d say a little of both.

When did you first begin writing in earnest?

I knew by the time I was in my teens that I wanted to be a writer. I was reading Kerouac and Bukowski and writing short stories and submitting off-beat poetry to small press journals when I was 18. During my college years, I worked as an editor on a number of philosophy textbooks. After school, I began freelance writing, which I continue to do today.

What are some of your influences?

I don’t usually read the same authors over and over enough to be influenced by one particular writer, but I greatly enjoy the conversational banter in mystery author Robert B. Parker’s books, and that has certainly rubbed off on me.

What is your writing schedule like?

I have a hectic schedule, and as much as I’d like to have a daily writing routine, I don’t. So my desk is often littered with scraps of paper scribbled with ideas and my computer is filled with first-draft files. I do try to write something every day, though.

What question do you most often get regarding the writing craft?
I get asked by aspiring authors, “How do you start writing a novel?” and I always say the same thing: “You don’t have to start at the beginning.” Just start writing — it could be in the middle, or somewhere in Act 3. What was originally going to be the very first paragraph of A Sword for Pizarro ended up in the last chapter. When you write, just let it flow, and worry about putting it in some kind of order later.

What other advice do you have for any budding writers out there?

Write for the right reasons. Write because you want to be read, because you have a story to tell. For every Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, there are a thousand underpaid unknown authors who still enjoy their craft regardless of never seeing their name on a bestseller list.

What does the future hold for you? Do you have another book in the works?

I’m currently working on the sequel to A Sword for Pizarro. It’s set in Brevard and the Abacos Islands and concerns a research vessel missing in the Bermuda Triangle and the appearance of a mysterious submarine.

What’s the last book you read?
Galleon Alley, by my friend Bob Weller.

What is your fondest memory?

It’s said that the sense of smell is the one most tied to memory; that you can smell a scent you hadn’t experienced in 30 years and recall feelings and emotions and the precise location of where you were the last time the odor touched your olfactory system. With that being said, every time I return to Brevard, I’m greeted with the smell of the sea air and the oleander flower that instantly transports me to childhood vacations in the Sunshine State.

What is your bitterest regret?

Nada.

If you could travel back in time to any era, where would you go?

I’d like to travel back to the American Revolutionary War, with layovers in the Jurassic period, and Honolulu, January 14, 1973 (Elvis’ “Aloha from Hawaii” concert).

If you won the lottery, what would you do with the winnings?
Travel more. Maybe buy a stateroom on the cruise ship The World. Maybe book a compartment on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Favorite meal?
Hot, crispy tacos with an ice-cold Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Favorite film?

“Jaws,” and not for the reason you’d think. This movie always spoke to me in different ways throughout my life. When I was young, I identified with the salty, roguish Quint. During my college years, it was the geeky Hopper. And now that I’m a husband and father, it’s the patriarchal Chief Brody I identify with. In the 1970s, most kids were into “Star Wars.” I loved my “Jaws.” Always have, always will.

Favorite music?

I enjoy everything from classical to disco to salsa y merengue. And if you live in Florida, you have to love Jimmy Buffett. I think it’s a State law.

What would you choose to come back as in your next life?

“Jaws,” and not for the reason you’d think.

Any parting words of wisdom?

Please visit www.HoldFastBooks.com and order a signed copy of A Sword for Pizarro! Throughout November, the book is discounted 20% off the newsstand price, making it a great holiday gift for yourself or a loved one. Filled with high-seas excitement, breezy humor, and tropical romance, A Sword for Pizarro has it all!

For more information about Tom Ryan and A  Sword for Pizarro, visit: www.holdfastbooks.com or www.myspace.com/illdrinktoyourleg